The 1st PGSD UST International Conference on Education Volume 1 (2018)
ISSN 26550687
Cultural Influences in Inquiry-based Science Learning (IBSL) practices:
Malaysia and Indonesia context
Lilia Halim Faculty of Education Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
Malaysia Email: [email protected]
Murni Ramli Faculty of Teacher Training and
Education Universitas Sebelas Maret
Indonesia
Email: [email protected]
Nurfaradilla Mohamad Nasri Faculty of Education Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
Malaysia
Email: [email protected]
Abstract: Scholars in science education around the world have actively encouraged science learning to be well-grounded in inquiry. Nonetheless, the feasibility and suitability of implementing inquiry in a new context should be carefully carried out. This is because local cultures have proven to significantly influence how inquiry is practiced in every country. This study aims to assess and understand the influence of Malaysian and Indonesian culture in science inquiry. 226 Malaysian science teachers and 42 Indonesian teachers were interviewed to obtain their views on cultural influences towards science inquiry. The findings of this study suggest that in Indonesia, the influence of culture on teachers’ practices of inquiry-based science learning (IBSL) is very weak compared to Malaysia. Indonesian students have the tendency to listen attentively in the classroom due to the respect for the authority. However, in Malaysia, various cultural factors lead to passive acts such as shyness, face-saving and the need to maintain social harmony. As a result, the nature of IBSL, which is to promote critical and active dialogue among students for knowledge discovery, is impeded. Nevertheless, teachers in both countries reported that they are very comfortable with deductive teaching approach as they can control the classroom. This study concludes by suggesting that to ensure smooth and effective implementation of IBSL, the adaptation process of ISBL should be done cautiously by taking into account the sensitivity of local culture.
Keywords: inquiry-based science learning; culture; shyness; passiveness; face-saving.
1.
Introduction
Culture often has a significant impact on one's life including his or her lifestyle. Not excluding learning, culture is also seen as a major influence in the learning process of an individual. Studies have shown that cultural influence can dictate the process as well as the
outcome of one's learning. For example, a student could be passive and reserved in the classroom due to their Asian heritage which greatly accentuate on respecting the teachers as they are wiser,as compared to a student with a more outspoken European background. In Malaysia, the ‘respect for wiser individuals’ is nurtured among Malaysians from a young age (e.g. Azizan, 2010; Tengku Kasim, 2012; Peen & Arshad, 2014; Nordin, Abdul Wahab & Dahlan, 2013), causing this value to be robustly practised. The effect of such a culture can be seen in learners unwilling to question educators’ actions or disagreeing with educators because they worry that they might be labelled as disrespectful. In this regard, Pham and Renshaw (2013) reported that not only are Asian learners less likely to question educators, but Asian educators, who are greatly influenced by the value of respecting wiser individuals, also tend to view themselves as authority figures to be respected and followed by learners.
It has been agreed by many researchers around the world that the nature of the learning process is significantly influenced by the diverse culture of the students. Since culture undoubtedly has great influence in students' learning process, any forms of learning theories and approaches are unquestionably affected by it as well. Accordingly, cultural influences impact IBSL by how the students respond to certain inquiry activities.
Teachers around the world are facing situations whereby a certain type of teaching approach might not be considered appropriate to teach a certain student with a specific background culture. Activities that are being conducted in classes might not be able to fulfil
its objectives due to the participations of the students. This study aims to assess and understands the influence of Malaysian and Indonesian culture in science inquiry by exploring science teachers’ practices of IBSL.
2.
Literature Review
Science since the beginning of time was recognized by educationist and researcher as a global culture. The reason for this is due to global pressures on convergence in education and emergence of global core cultural values. Nevertheless, it is important to bear in mind that in our drive and passion, especially in Asian countries, to adopt various educational approaches introduced by Western researcher, local culture and variation in different nations must be acknowledged.
Idea where successful educational system should be rooted based on local socio-political background [3]. The empirical study conducted by Heinz et al. (2016) again highlighted many interesting ideas about the cultural constraints and possibilities in implementing IBSL in different countries [4]. According to them, teacher should use culture as a means of transport for ensuring quality education by being sensitive to local culture and continuously adjusting their teaching approach to meet the needs of that student. By simply adopting the Western instructional approaches, teachers are in the track of destruction as actual meaningful science learning cannot be established from artificial learning process that failed to fully capture students’ cultural beliefs and values [4].
In this case, acknowledging one's culture has long been practiced by Japan, one of Asian countries with an exceptional educational system. Japanese ensure that their education is always relevant with their Japanese culture and at the same time they provide various opportunities for their students to be global sensitive and competent citizen by exposing them with various global issues [5]. As a result, the achievements of their students are consistently in a high position in both the TIMSS and PISA evaluation (Ishii, 1995). Furthermore, Japanese elementary science education which was solely developed based on the Japanese traditional love of nature is a good example of culturally responsive science curriculum (Cobern, 1996). This shows that in an effort to provide a quality education for all
students, all countries should take into consideration their local cultural background and use their unique cultural values as well as indigenous knowledge to spark students' interest and stimulate their thirst for knowledge discovery.
Realizing the needs in making science curriculum authentically sensitive to local culture, teachers needed to know more about the influence of local culture on teaching and learning. Despite receiving increasing attention from researchers, the understanding of cultural aspects of IBSL have tended to be narrowly defined and have failed to capture the complexity as well as variations of culture that exist in the world. In addition, most researchers tended to simply categorize learners into two distinct groups: Western learners influenced by Western educational values, and Asian learners influenced by Confucian educational values. Ignoring the existence of other ethnic groups or existence of a country is totally unacceptable as all science exists in cultural context of the society which provides its setting.
Therefore, this study aims to explore the influence of Malaysia and Indonesia culture on science teachers’ practices of IBSL. It is hoped that this study will provide a comprehensive understanding on the influence of culture in learning process, in general and specifically in the practices of IBSL.
2.1. Basic features of Inquiry-Based Science Learning (IBSL)
Although IBSL is finding increased acceptance, nonetheless researchers have not reached consensus on the agreed definition of inquiry-based approach and no unified depiction exists of how inquiry is to be implemented in the science classroom (Silm et al., 2017). This causes science teachers to be in problematic and challenging state as they have no clear guidance on the implementation of IBSL particularly in the formal science classroom. As a result, most science teachers tend to carry out learning activities that they think align with the philosophy of IBSL. Sometimes, the activities that were conducted aligned with IBSL approach, nevertheless, if the activities contradict with the main goal of IBSL, inquiry learning would be hindered.
Based on critical review of literature, it is clear that IBSL is congruent with constructivist ideology as it: (i) emphasizes students' prior knowledge as the foundation of further
learning, (2) requires students to be actively engage with their learning process, and (3) students are held responsible for constructing knowledge with teachers assuming the role of facilitator in guiding students' process of knowledge discovery (Panjwani, 2015). Furthermore, with IBSL, students are expected to work cooperatively and collaboratively with their peers in conducting science process skills such as classifying, measuring, inferring and predicting. Most importantly, they should be able to communicate as well as critique each other's work. This nature of IBSL which demands students to question and critique other’s work will create uneasiness among students that comes from a culture that teach them to save face and avoid humiliating other people while maintaining peace and harmony especially in the classroom (Loh & Teo, 2017). Hence, this cultural orientation if not immediately and properly identify and deal with, it has the potential of inhibiting the process of an effective IBSL.
In the same vein, implementing IBSL requires the teachers to change their roles from knowledge transmitter to leader of the learning where they must be physically and mentally prepared to venture to an exciting learning journey which demands hard work, creativity and imagination. Once again, teachers especially in countries where the teachers assume the roles of authority figures in learning will face challenges to detach from their traditional roles of knowledge experts (Pham & Renshaw, 2013). If they are not being convinced by the benefits of IBSL approach, there is a high chance that they will tend to execute deductive learning approach and discourage students to participate actively during teaching and learning process because of their familiarity with this approach. This conventional class interaction ecosystem could potentially inhibit an effective implementation of IBSL.
In summary, it is debatable thatthese basic features of IBSL show that some of the characteristics of IBSL which originated from Western researchers’ idea of ensuring active and meaningful science learning experienceare incompatible to an extent is ignoring or isolating cultural orientations especially for non-Western students. Therefore, in order to ensure the primary goal of IBSL is achieved, each country should adopt IBSL cautiously by
being alert or sensitive to their local socio-cultural context. This study aims to investigate to what extent Asian learner’s characteristics which commonly labelled by researchers were true and shared among Asian learners in Asia region.
2.2. Image of Asian Learners
A plethora of literature has reported on Asian conceptions of IBSL and which are attributed to their distinctive cultural characteristics (Nuangchalerm, 2014). The key characteristics of Asian learners commonly highlighted in the literature, and which are deemed crucial in making IBSL approach is culturally relevant and feasible to all students, are passiveness, shyness and face-saving concept. IBSL demands students to actively and critically participate in class discussion. The interaction and dialogue created from the discussion process are identified by many researchers (Jagger, 2013) as one of the important strategies increating a lively learning atmosphere that promotes inquiry. However, in an Asian education context, talking and thinking are disconnected and unrelated educational dimensions (Xia, 2009). Hence, Kim (2008) reports that Asian learners favoured a state of silence as it portrays individual cognitive ability and considered to be more beneficial for higher-order thinking. As a result, Asian learners are often labelled as passive learners.
Peen and Arshad (2014) who have been researching about the issue of learners' passive behaviour in science class also reported that, Malaysian learners prefer to listen attentively and avoid questioning their educators, as this may lead them to being judged as intellectually incompetent. All of these reactions are related to shyness, a dominant cultural value affecting most Asian learners. In the same vein, Paulhus, Duncan and Yik (2002) reported that their comparison of the behaviour between Asian and European learners sheds light on the fact that Asian learners exhibit significantly higher levels of shyness compared to their European counterparts. It would appear that shyness is one of the prevailing features of Asian learners that lead most Asian learners to be less communicative, unassertive and showcasing failure-avoidance behaviour. This once against contradicts with the features of IBSL approach and likely causing Asian students to be discriminated with this approach.
A critical review of literature on shyness indicates that this feature is closely associated with face-saving concept that has a substantial power to influence learners' preference for IBSL or for submission to an authority figure (Wong, 2004). Reflecting on the concept of face-saving, questioning of an educator is seen as rude, unacceptable and disrespectful and most importantly, this act may cause a loss of 'face'. Therefore, to avoid losing 'face', Asian learners tend not to question their educators as well as their friends to maintain harmonious atmosphere and to avoid confrontation (Wu, 2008). Nevertheless, once more, a question arises; do all Asian learners exhibit these similar features because the countries in Asia are made up from population of various races and ethnics, different religious background, and socio-economy that varies from one another? Considering the diversity and variation of Asian culture, this study aims to investigate the
influence of Malaysia and Indonesia culture in IBSL approach.
3.
Material & Methodology
The respondents were asked to answer two open ended questions. The first question was ‘In your opinion as a teacher, to what extend the eastern culture e.g. the need to respect your elders, or important to listen rather than talk influences: a) Teachers’ ability to conduct inquiry teaching and b) Students’ ability to learn through inquiry. The second open ended question was: Please give your opinion on factors that a) Encourage teaching and learning through inquiry and b) Inhibit teaching and learning through inquiry. The written responses were analysed and interpreted using the basic features governing Inquiry based science teaching and learning (IBSTL) and characteristics of Asian learners and its related culture. The responses were then categorized thematically.
4.
Results
Table 1. summarises the key themes and subthemes which emerged following analysis of the data. Malaysia Indonesia
Theme 1: Maintaining Social Harmony
Subtheme 1a: The concept of face-saving Subtheme 1b: Shyness
Listen Attentively A state of silence is favoured
/ -
/ -
/ -
/ /
/ /
Theme 2: Educator-Learner relationship
Subtheme 2a: - Authoritative image of the educator - Respect for authority
- Closed-minded - Classroom control - Learners' passive behaviour - Submission to an authority figure - Educator as knowledge transmitter
Subtheme 2b: - Democratic image of the educator - Educator as facilitator - Educator as motivator / - / / / / / - / / / / / - / / / / / / / /
Theme 3: Ways of Science Teaching
Subtheme 3a: - Conventional teaching Approach - Deductive Approach - Teacher-centred approach - Student academic achievement
Subtheme 3b: - Contemporary teaching approach - Flexibility in teaching - Students empowerment - Learner as co-partner/ Sharing Power
/ / / / / / / / / - / / / / / - / -
Theme 4: Failure avoidance / -
Subtheme 4a: - Participation Anxiety Subtheme 4b: - Failure bring shame
/ -
From analysis of the research participants' (226 Malaysian and 42 Indonesian teachers-most of them are Javanese), four major themes and a number of subthemes were identified. The key themes are:
i. Maintaining social harmony ii. Educator-learner relationship iii. Ways of science teaching iv. Failure avoidance
Interestingly, in Indonesia, maintaining social harmony is not a cultural aspect that significantlyinfluences IBSL teaching practices among teachers. This is clear when the concept of face-saving which was one of the main reasons for Malaysian teachers and students to be reserved and adopt a one-way communication is not a cultured factor that influence or prevents the practices of IBSL in Indonesia. Malaysian teachers have reported that shyness is a main factor that leads students to listen attentively to their teachers, thus indirectly being labelled as passive recipients of knowledge as they favour a state of silence in learning.
Students in Malaysia are very careful when they speak to avoid offending their classmates and teachers. Thus, they are hesitant to share their opinions let alone criticising since they are shy and would only speak if being asked by the teachers.
(MT 1) On the contrary, the teachers in Indonesia do not consider shyness as an important cultural issue in executing IBSL in Indonesia. Indonesian teachers do, however, agree that their students possess the same traits as Malaysian students which are the tendency to only listen.
The learning process for science subject in Indonesia often occur in a quiet environment where only the teacher is talking, explaining and sharing information while the students tend to listen attentively. However, if they do not understand or have
different views or opinions, they will inform and share to the classroom immediately. It is not due to shyness that they reserved, but they just need quiet time to think and digest.
(IT 3) Learners' passive behaviour that has been discussed relates to the second theme which is Educator-learner relationship. Surprisingly, although education in Asia is always labelled as an orthodox and conventional system, dual contrasting images of the teacher were reported by both Malaysia and Indonesia research participants, which are authoritative and democratic images of the teacher. Referring to the preceding image of the teacher, the teachers in Malaysia and Indonesia reported that their students highly respect authority and consider teacher as knowledge transmitter. This indirectly contributes to Learners' passive behaviour.
The arguments presented by the students sometimes might challenge the teachers as if questioning the teachers’ level of knowledge and this act is deemed as a threat since it creates an uncomfortable feeling among the teachers in Malaysia. Personally I am not comfortable with this threatening situation as it shows that they are not respecting me as their teacher.
(MT 4) Nonetheless, teachers in Indonesia inform that respect for teachers does not require the students to submit to an authority figure and restrict their freedom to think and to speak. This situation is different in Malaysia.
Students in Indonesia are free to voice out their opinions and have the rights in the classroom to state their views and perspectives. We always expect students to be proactive and dare to argue academically with us.
For the next subtheme democratic image of the teacher, teachers in Malaysia and Indonesia emphasize that they are a facilitator and a motivator in IBSL approach. Due to the dual image of teacher held by both Malaysian and Indonesian teachers, ways of science teaching also consist of two different approaches which are conventional teaching approach and contemporary teaching approach. Both the teachers in Indonesia and Malaysia reported that in getting to know IBSL, they are still comfortable to use teacher-centered approach. Nevertheless, only teachers in Malaysia notified that teacher-centered approach is being used because the Malaysian community strongly focus on student academic achievement especially on their achievement in the national examination.
Science learning in Indonesia is slowly changing from a passive science learning to a more inquiry learning process. This situation poses a challenge for the teachers who are already comfortable with the old process because they need to do an early preparation for the inquiry science class.
(IT 6) Although student-centred learning and inquiry learning are important, I believe that teachers are supposed to play a role as the main source for the students. Our students are incapable of learning independently and I believe that teachers are paid to teach. Lastly, the quality of teachers is being measured by society and school with the numbers of students that receive A. (MT 8) Teachers in Malaysia and Indonesia practice Flexibility in teaching, however only teachers in Malaysia that encourage students empowerment and involve in leaner as co-partner in learning. Taking this discussion further, it is puzzling to know that despite students are encouraged by Malaysian teachers to always play an active role during the process of learning, they reported that Malaysian students if to be compared with their Indonesian counterpart have a higher failure avoidance. Failure avoidance resulting
Malaysian teachers and students to be reluctant to venture into new or unknown territory to avoid from being label as intellectually incompetent by their friends when they failed to understand certain concepts.
Science learning in Malaysia is student-centred and enrich with various hands-on activities, flipped classes and project-based activities. Teachers play a role to facilitate the student’s learning process and to give guidance should the students require their help. Nonetheless, the students are careful and do not prefer unsure situations especially when conducting learning activities that are problem-based due to no concrete answer that could be used as a guide. Besides that, the feelings exist because of students’ self-conscious where they do not want to be labelled as not smart.
(MT 10) Students in Malaysia show a high rate of participation anxiety and assume that failure bring shame. Thus, they tend to stay passive and this cultural factor extremely influences the execution of Inquiry-based Science learning especially in Malaysia.
5.
Discussion & Conclusion
Based on our fine-gained analysis of the qualitative data, it can be concluded that the cultural factor has less influence on teachers' practices of IBSL in Indonesia. It is suggested that as the influence of Islamic values on learning and teaching is more evident in Malaysia than Indonesia where Indonesian emphasize more on the Indonesia culture such as the national ideology of Pancasila; which aims to ensure the welfare and safety of the Indonesia society this indirectly caused Indonesian to be more liberal or have more secular views (Ichwan, 2011). This can be understood well, since the plurality of the religion and ethnicity in Indonesia, most of teachers in this country may be influenced more by the national culture than their own local culture or ethnicity. It is difficult to define the national culture of Indonesia, but Pancasila can be assumed as the culture of the nation. On that note, we would argue that being an official
religion of Malaysia, Islam has had and continues to have a significant influence on the Malaysian education system. The infusion of Islamic key values for example 'belief and devotion to God' is evident in the statement of the Malaysian National Philosophy of Education. However, we believed Islamic values are not the main factors that caused Malaysian to be more reserved as there are other factors that need to be examined. For example, although Indonesians are consist of various ethnics, the diversity in Malaysia with 3 main ethnics, Malays, Chinese and Indians with different cultures and beliefs but can live together harmoniously as a community, require a high level of tolerance. This could be the reason that cultural element greatly influences the life and formal education process among Malaysians. A more analytical and in-depth research needs to be conducted to study these aspects thoroughly.
In relation to this study, Alawi's (2010) convincing statement on the purpose of education in Islam which is to produce a good man, a man of manners, and a universal man with a comprehensive worldview, has a great influence on Malaysian society and stressed by the teachers in Malaysia. These are the reasons why culture plays a vital role and can influence IBSL teaching practice among teachers.
In a nutshell, although Malaysia and Indonesia are always labeled as one root due to the majority of the populations are Malays and Muslims; however, local cultural factor has a significant effect in the process of teaching and learning. As IBSL approach is gaining a great deal of popularity in the science education community, an awareness of the influences of the local cultural context and their challenges to the implementation of culturally responsible IBSL approach is crucial. We believe that by simply categorizing students into West vs East, we have failed to take into account the diverse cultural variations that exist in the world. Therefore, it is hoped that this study will spark future research on culturally relevant IBSL classroom practice which take into consideration local-cultural context of a nation.
Acknowledgement
This research is supported by Sabbatical Grant, UKM and 2017 Asia Centre Fellowship Award, Asia Centre, Japan Foundation.
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